Originally posted by slartibartfast01 He definitely had an agenda but it seemed odd that the link he provided totally disagreed with his claim.
This sort of thing preys on gullibility and laziness. People, if they have a particular mindset already, are simply looking for confirmation of what they already believe (confirmation bias).
So, when they see a reasonably coherent opinion piece that confirms what they already believe, the chances of clicking on the link that they presume is going to give added confirmation is remarkably small.
People don't want their minds changed, they just want confirmation that what they want to believe is true.
The term "fake news" was coined to take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of sheep out there.
Now if a person sees something they don't want to believe, they have a ready made term to apply to it, and can happily go off about their day, safe in the knowledge that the junk they are being spoon fed is fact. All the data, opinions from experts, or even seeing it with their own eyes and hearing it with their own ears can be discounted.